Withered
by Mark-Kris Robin Lancer
Summary: It's hard to endure the fate of the world when you endure all alone. It's not as if it cares for your endeavors anyway. (Inspired by Psalms 102)


**Disclaimer: If I owned DS3... I'd be dishonoring . Also, Psalm 102 is written by some random sick dude (the Bible never specified who), and I've used verses 3 to 11. I apologize in advance if I switch between customary and metric system units.**

* * *

 _For my days vanish like smoke;  
_ _my bones burn like glowing embers._

 _My heart is blighted and withered like grass;  
_ _I forget to eat my food._

 _In my distress I groan aloud  
_ _and am reduced to skin and bones._

 _I am like a desert owl,  
_ _like an owl among the ruins._

 _I lie awake; I have become  
_ _like a bird alone on a roof._

 _All day long my enemies taunt me;  
_ _those who rail against me use my name as a curse._

 _For I eat ashes as my food  
_ _and mingle my drink with tears_

 _because of your great wrath,_  
 _for you have taken me up and thrown me aside._

 _My days are like the evening shadow;_  
 _I wither away like grass._

* * *

With the exception of the usual banging away at Andre's forge and the soft crackling at the bonfire, Firelink Shrine was quiet. Very, very quiet. The Ashen One didn't settle for this stillness, but there was quite literally nothing to do. At least, nothing that she wanted to do.

It wasn't as if the outside world didn't sound the same anyways, besides the ever-padding footsteps of her enemies and the audible silence of a dying world.

 _'So let it die,'_ she told herself.

Her grim visage was out in display for all to see, illuminated by the fire her eyes were so transfixed upon. If she looked up at Ludleth, he would grimace at her, as if he knew about her sinful thoughts.

It was quite strange for her kind to think these thoughts. They can lose hope, they can feel worthless, as if they failed the world, but they can't hollow, they can't think to reject the First Flame. But she did. All of those things, she did. She was self-conscious of her appearance now, never taking off her Untrue Dark Ring, constantly glancing to her hands in the fear that they would look emaciated and dying. Her body was stronger than ever, but her mind was abound with several hundred different thoughts, accusatory and derogatory towards herself. The souls she received seemed to scream at her, clawing at her own soul until she relinquished them all to the Fire Keeper.

She wasn't sure what she hated more: the stillness of the decaying world, or the voices in her decaying mind.

She felt a chill run down her spine and took a moment to raise her gaze from the hypnotizing fires to her surroundings, and found no one else but the few who chose to linger around the shadow of the thrones, the bonfire too paltry to pierce through the veil of the night any farther than a few meters. And yet, she knew that not too far away, Yuria must be gauging her somehow, likely keeping tabs on her through one of her mysterious ways. The Ashen One did not enjoy her presence, but she tolerated, if only for the sake of the late Yoel of Londor.

She heard whispers of Londor in her previous life, which was already frighteningly hazy. Did lighting the First Flame matter to her before she was branded with the Darksign? Has she ever met with someone from Londor, or had been to that forsaken place? As an Unkindled, the duty to do so consumed her, nearly claiming her mind, but other wants of her own surfaced from time to time.

 _I wanted to dance._

 _I wanted to see my brother once more._

 _I wanted to perfect sword dancing._

 _I wanted recognition._

 _I wanted acceptance._

 _I wanted..._

 _I wanted..._

She remembered once while training here that Ludleth had commented that it seemed more like she was dancing. She had given him a disapproving look at his comment before he chuckled and said that it must be deadly beautiful to her enemies.

Once dancing came to her mind, she could not get the thought to leave. Immediately, she felt the familiar need to get up and let her steps flow from one position to the next, making up an imaginary song in her mind. More than once did she catch herself humming some tavern tune from long ago as her blades slashed across yet another Hollow, which is quite disconcerting when she pondered on her actions too much.

Then again, what is it that can be called disconcerting anymore? Surely, the entire world must have experienced too many abnormal phenomena to care for just herself singing a jolly old drunken melody as she hacked through yet another hollow carcass.

She'd rather keep on doing that and duel silently, however. Every day, or night, or cycle (time was always _very_ convoluted and fickle with reality), she found it harder to remember the face of her hollowing brother (where was he anyways?) or the stench of smoke and alcohol in the air of a crowded room, hiding her slowly rotting body by the use of whatever she could afford, and more. It wasn't too different from now, but her Undead brother is now the Undead Anri (he was surely Hollowing, like his companion, Horace, like her), and the smoke is from the infrequent fires of chaos, the alcohol nothing more than substantial wine that seemed to last longer than pure water, the room crowded with enemy after enemy, feeling insecure yet again with her decaying self, people looking away in disgust from her.

It's so harrowing, to see a world so full of life deteriorate into stone, it seemed, like the earth beneath them was an ancient stone dragon of old, before time took on a meaning, and now its scars from fire are healing over, returning the world to silence. The gods sure have done a great job failing all those that have risen from the fire to build themselves a new empire. What use was their ethereal power if they could not use them?

She clenched her fist. She never liked them before undeath. Her state now didn't make her appreciate them any more. She heard rumors that it was even Gwyn who had cast them into this degenerative state. Gwyn! And yet there still are those who praise his "almighty" name. He sure did use all of his might to cling desperately onto his dying dynasty.

Why was she still attempting to link the flame? Like Hawkwood had said, she was not fit to even lick the boots of everything else that exists within this world, lesser than the smallest grain of sand in the most desolate of deserts.

Maybe the Ashen One just wanted to finally _die._ She was tired, overly so. The task set before her was grueling and relentless, the path currently being traveled upon paved with thorns and lined with toxin, but still she drudged through, if only to see to her own end successfully. And, hopefully, never be resurrected like the Lords of Cinder. Prince Lothric is such an _idiot_. He's the one that started this whole mess. Idiotic and selfish.

But then again, her want to relink the First Flame is quite selfish, isn't it?

But mainly, she was just _so **tired**_. Tired of doing, tired of playing into people's games, tired of fighting, tired of cleaning up the messes of a spoiled kid she was supposed to kill a long time ago, before her calling to the Fire, tired of feeling like absolute _shit_ just because she looked like she touched death on a daily basis.

She took the Untrue Dark Ring from her fingers and threw it wherever, it ceased to concern her in her tear-filled frustration, and hid deeper within herself, trying all her might to let the heat from the bonfire seep deep into her soul.

* * *

"Ashen One."

She snapped her eyes open. She hadn't realized that she had closed them.

"You have not eaten yet."

It was nothing but a statement, but a kind, concerned one at least, and although she could not see the Fire Keeper's full expression (as if she showed much anyways), the slight worry held was present enough.

She suddenly realized that she had not looked at her directly out of her own accord. She looked at her fingers. Wrinkly and deathly. She really did that, didn't she?

She looked back at the Fire Keeper, and her minimal expression never changed. She allowed herself a fake smile.

"I haven't," she said back, and rose from her hunched-over position, vertebrae popping from the strange strain. "Thank you."

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **I got the idea for this in the middle of sermon last Sunday while I was flipping through Psalms, believe it or not. I read the verses I showed here and remembered that they were used in the novel _Between Shades of Gray_ by Ruta Sepetys. It's a really great book, by the way, and I recommend everyone read it. It's about a Lithuanian girl as she goes through the Soviet genocide of the Baltic people during WWII, which was so severe that it has been given the nickname of the Red Holocaust. **

**Inspiration really can come from anywhere and anything.**


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